Just faking it…

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As the Trump controversies keep on pouring in, Google and Facebook have now decided to crusade against fake news, as widely shared, yet wholly fabricated stories about the candidates may (or may not) have adversely influenced the presidential election. Part of the problem began when Google realized that the top results for search phrases such as “final election results” and “who won the popular vote” were directing users to a fake news site. By Monday, Google started pulling AdSense from several sites that “misrepresent, misstate or conceal information” and were profiting off such bogus political news stories. As for Facebook, it plans to put the kibosh on ad money from fake sites, but it’s not entirely clear how it will achieve this objective and identify these sites. However, it seems to be a prudent move considering that, according to a Pew study, 44% of Americans get their news from the social network giant. No matter how you slice it, the internet and social media figured prominently last Tuesday and now everyone’s looking to find out what went wrong – or right.

Unbalanced…

Image courtesy of sukanda/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Privately-held company New Balance has inadvertently, and presumably unwillingly, become the unofficial “official shoes of white people.” Unlike its much more enormous rival, Nike, the 110 year old Boston-based New Balance has always been committed to manufacturing its products in the U.S. across 14 factories where it employs over 1,400 people of various races, ethnicities, genders, religions etc. Hence, the company never cared much for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement that gives companies – like Nike – a very humongous edge because they can manufacture a greater quantity of goods abroad, for a lot lot less money than doing it here. The TPP basically jeopardizes companies who choose to domestically produce goods by making for a very un-level playing field. Because Trump is a huge fan of domestic manufacturing and job creation, his election was welcome news for New Balance. And when New Balance said as much, social media either skewered the company and called for boycotts and mass destruction of the sneakers or had white supremacists proclaiming it as their footwear of choice. Incidentally, New Balance supported the trade policies of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders too. A fact that both Trump haters and white supremacists seemed to have overlooked.

Have you manufactured a Ford lately?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After congratulating Donald Trump on his election last week, Ford Motors CEO Mark Fields shared some thoughts about Trump’s proposed 35% tariffs on imports – he thinks they’re a bad idea. After reporting a 12% decline in car sales for October earlier this month, Fields said in a speech given at the L.A. Auto show, that those tariffs will have a very big bad impact on the U.S economy and trusts (or hopes) that Trump will do what’s in the best interests of the United States. However, Trump, early on in his campaign spoke about how he didn’t appreciate the fact that Fields moved Ford’s small car production to Mexico, where wages are a whopping 80% less than what they are in the U.S. If you recall, Trump thinks NAFTA is “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country” and he’s licking his chops to put the kibosh on it. Although, to counter that last tidbit, Fields did say that Ford added 25,000 jobs since 2011. In the meantime, experts have said that Trump’s tariffs, which are on this side of punitive, in fact, violate the rules of the World Trade Organization. So it’s anybody’s guess how far those tariffs will actually go.